10 Cool Ways to Control Your Hearing Aids With the Apple Watch

Imagine being able to adjust the volume, treble, and bass on your hearing aids as discretely and effortlessly as checking the time on your wrist. Or picture fine-tuning your hearing aids for any hearing environment without ever having to touch your hearing aids.

Sound too good to be true? A few years ago, it was; but with the Apple Watch, hearing aid users are redefining the way they interact with their hearing aids.

With Apple’s most personal gadget to date, you can now leave your hearing aid remote control at home, your cell phone in your pocket, and your fingers out of your ears. All hearing aid modifications and settings can be easily accessed from a software program within the watch—meaning you’ll never have to touch your hearing aids or constantly fumble through your cell phone again.

Here are 10 cool things you can do with your Apple Watch and compatible hearing aids.

1. Forget the hearing aid remote control

The problem with contemporary hearing aids is that as they become smaller, more powerful, and loaded with more capabilities, they become harder to handle. This makes a remote control a requirement, but who wants to carry around yet another device?

Even using your cell phone as the remote control can get tiring, but with the Apple Watch, if you want to alter a setting, you just lift your wrist. It can’t get any easier than that.

2. Easily adjust the volume, treble, and bass

Need the hearing aid volume adjusted? No problem, just inconspicuously raise your wrist, tap the hearing aid application on the watch, and swipe your finger to adjust the volume control slider. You can also quickly fine-tune the treble and bass to build the perfect sound quality in any hearing scenario.

3. Mute your hearing aids

Circumstances arise when you don’t want to amplify sound, and with the Apple Watch, you can turn off the hearing aids with the push of a button.

Although we don’t suggest using this feature on your spouse.

4. Create and save custom sound settings

Having a discussion in a restaurant is very different than having one at home; that’s why hearing aids have what are referred to as “environmental presets,” or settings that amplify sounds according to the environment.

With the Apple Watch, you can conveniently access and switch among presets, varying settings on the fly depending on where you are. And as you make your changes, if there is a unique setting that works particularly well, you can save the setting, label it, and access it later.

5. Stream music and phone calls

You’re out for a walk and you want to play your favorite music album. That would typically call for you to take out your hearing aids, but with Apple Watch, you can stream music wirelessly from the watch to your hearing aids. In this manner, your hearing aids have the dual purpose of a sound amplification device and a set of high-quality headsets.

Additionally, you can very easily answer or forward phone calls straight from the watch, as the audio is delivered wirelessly to your hearing aids not unlike the music.

6. Find your lost hearing aids

We all lose important things, like our car keys, and we waste a great deal of time attempting to find them. But when we lose our hearing aids, it’s not only inconvenient—we risk damaging the gadget that links us to sound, which can be distressing.

With the Apple Watch, if you misplace your hearing aids, you can quickly track them down as the watch can detect their location and render it on a map.

7. Focus on speech and block out background noise

Most digital hearing aids include directional microphones and other background-noise eliminating capacities. With the Apple Watch, you have continuous access to these features, with the ability to narrow the focus in a hectic room, for instance, by tuning in to the person you’re conversing with while blocking the background noise.

8. View your battery and connection status

You no longer have to worry about running out of battery power and being stuck without audio. You can effortlessly keep tabs on your hearing aid battery life directly on the Apple Watch.

9. Make your hearing aids invisible

You can’t literally make your hearing aids invisible with the Apple Watch, but with the right hearing aid, it will appear that way to the people around you. The Apple Watch, along with a completely-in-the-ear-canal hearing aid, will be totally out of view. And when you’re fine-tuning your hearing aid settings on your watch, people will think you’re checking the time.

10. Regulate your tinnitus

Sound therapy in the form of white noise, music, or nature sounds can be streamed wirelessly to your hearing aids, and the sounds can be altered to complement the frequency of your tinnitus—all from the Apple Watch.

Customize your hearing experience

While the Apple Watch is not compatible with all types of hearing aid, several hearing aid models currently are, and we anticipate additional models to be developed in the future. The Apple Watch is the optimal remedy to many of the concerns expressed by our patients and provides a level of interaction and control like never before.

Contact us today to find out more about this extraordinary technology.

Do you own an Apple Watch? Do you use it to control your hearing aids? Let us know about your experience in a comment.